iPhone Wednesday #12

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I was photographing a curvaceous classic Airstream trailer when I spied this couple on their tandem bicycle across the street. They were just about to cross some railroad tracks (bump bump!!). I took this shot with my iPhone and edited it with a brand new app that, although limited in function compared to my fave all-around iPhone photo editor, Photogene, still does some pretty cool stuff and is super easy and intuitive to use. The intended focus of this new app is its ease of use and all-in-one quick editing and direct upload to email and social networking sites. The app also has its own new photo sharing site exclusively for camera phone shots using this app. It is called Best Camera, and the name comes from a catch phrase by its creative source, Seattle photographer Chase Jarvis, who said, "The best camera is the one that's with you." It's a great app, and I think it will be really great in about two upgrades when they hopefully will add sliders to control the intensity of each of the filters offered, and add more choice and control to functions like crop and frame. It's a very slick app for what it does, it has no glitches or crash problems like some. But, several of the filters really blow out the highlights (as you can see in my shot above) and there is no way to moderate that. Chase Jarvis has just published a book of his iPhone shots, and it is also titled "The Best Camera is the One That's With You."

I met Chase Jarvis once while I was out photo walking a year and a half or two years ago. He was just a guy out on the street with a camera in hand like me, we noticed each other's cameras, said hi, he asked what I was shooting, I said I was just photowalking and usually had my camera with me, he said he did too, we introduced ourselves and then went on our way. I had no idea who he was at the time, just seemed like a nice guy out shooting street, not a mega famous photography/video guru who is widely known for his fashion, ad, Xtreme sports photography, and for his media and marketing savvy. After our family converted to iPhones last year I started taking photos with mine, just as I had been accustomed to doing for the six years before that with my Palm Pilot. The quality wasn't great, but I used it daily in my work. Early this year I read something that mentioned Chase, and remembered the name, and still later in the year I saw a short video he'd done about using his iPhone, at the end of which he gets hit by a car while he's photographing in the street. . .(humor). I also noticed a couple pro photographers were making some incredible iPhone shots, so asked one of them, Matt Shumate, about it, and he shared his work flow with me and told me about his fave apps. Now that there are a plethora of iPhone photo apps, the quality of a good or even an okay shot can be greatly enhanced and even with the crummy ones (like above) you can come up with some novel treatments so the shot is not a total write off. My iPhone Wednesday buds, Chuck and Ming the Merciless have more iPhone fun for you today, too.